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The Case for Outsourcing Your Office and Other Things.

Let’s start with the case against outsourcing. According to a Fast Company article, insourcing works better than outsourcing when it comes to big changes in your company. Making large strategic changes inhouse sends a message to your team that you believe in them! We all know that the best ideas and solutions usually come from the very individuals that are experiencing the challenges firsthand. They have an in-depth understanding of the issues and not simply an intellectual or theoretical view, giving them a huge advantage over a consultant!

Allowing staff the opportunity to solve problems gives them a sense of ownership over the challenges. It can provide better solutions as well as a higher likelihood that implementation takes place, ultimately building your teams expertise, problem-solving skills, and engagement at work.

However, there are a myriad of benefits for outsourcing non-essential tasks in areas where a company does not have the expertise. For us at Ikigai, one of those areas has been IT. Although we rely heavily on technology to run our business and make us more efficient, understanding firewalls, structured cabling, networks or how to build a mobile application is not our core business! As such, we made a decision very early on to outsource our mobile application development, which as a result was ready for launch in 4 weeks as opposed to the 6 months we had projected had we built it in-house.

Therefore, not only does outsourcing allow your company to save time, it also allows you to tap into great talent. The other services that we believe may provide advantages if outsourced are business services including routine tasks such as applying for the yearly unified business license required by the Nairobi City Council, applying for a PIN, employee WIBA certificates and so much more! Human Resources is another function we have started to outsource.

In this case, we remain heavily involved in the process but outsource the time-consuming tasks such as advertising job vacancies and reading through hundreds of resumes before inviting a small pool of qualified candidates in for an interview.

Having a company such as Shortlist (who have a good understanding of our business) to do this for us means that we only ever interview the best candidates, saving us time and money and significantly increasing our recruitment success rate. We also advise SME’s to outsource routine accounting needs such as tax filing and employee payroll!

Outsourcing also allows companies to tap into talent and business expertise globally, opening opportunities for business like never before! In addition, the cost savings of not requiring extra staff that often come with the added costs of healthcare, insurance and additional office space (you should outsource that too 😊) can be significant. are limited.

What we want to make the biggest case for is outsourcing your office space needs! Why? Unless you are in real estate, commercial letting is probably not your core business and finding a small bus! Coworking spaces offer an ideal landing place for both local and international companies as they allow them to setup and start business operations almost immediately.

At Ikigai, we cater to all a company’s office needs by providing fully furnished office space and individual workspaces in the heart of Nairobi. The offices come with desks, ergonomic office chairs, shelves, storage, Wi-Fi connections, backup power, conference and meeting rooms, lounges, phone booths, relaxation and focus pods as well as a Mother’s room and a Prayer room! We also have fully-fitted kitchens with unlimited tea, coffee and water, a coffee bar for specialty drinks and daily lunch available.

Members also receive complimentary yoga and meditation on a weekly basis to ensure the highest levels of productivity. The biggest advantages of outsourcing demonstrated here are the perks that an employer can offer their employees that they might not have otherwise been able to easily provide such as yoga, meditation, knowledge events, a beautiful work environment and a coffee bar.

We argue here that these additional perks and services can increase employee engagement, happiness and ultimately retention! In addition, because the spaces come fully furnished and have office infrastructure in place, your capital expenditures are reduced, allowing your company to use these funds for other more essential business activities.

Outsourcing your office to Ikigai also gives you the convenience of multiple strategically located offices across Nairobi as our members have access to all Ikigai locations city-wide. Secondly, coworking spaces allow for companies to set up an office in a matter of minutes (plug and play) as all the amenities and services are already provided. With short term licenses compared to traditional office leases, the ability for companies to scale up and down easily is also a considerable advantage.

Flexible Office space in this day and age is very sought after, where businesses can be here today and gone tomorrow. Lastly, your staff costs can be reduced as you no longer need to hire a front of house, cleaner or maintenance team as we take care of all of that for you!

Ikigai Nairobi is a coworking office space company in Kenya that aims to support local and international businesses. We house small, medium and large enterprises within our community across two locations in Westlands and Lavington with a third location, on Lower Kabete Road, opening in mid-2019.

Give us a try today and hand over your frustrations with office setup and running to us!

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Ikigai

Ikigai (生き甲斐) is a Japanese concept meaning “a reason for being”. Everyone, according to the Japanese, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search is regarded as being very important, since it is believed that discovery of one’s ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life.